Followers

An unusual art piece to say the least, it calls into question the ideas of religious freedom, sexual freedom and personal choice of women - and servitude of women to patriarchy. All that in one painting.

In 1936 started her career as a Catholic nun and educator. During her career she began taking art classes, and received a masters in art history, later chairing the art history department at Immaculate Heart College in L.A. California.

In 1968 she decided to leave the order to pursue a full-time career as an artist. Prior to her leaving, her classes were a mecca to artists, directors and inventors like Alfred Hitchcock and Buckminster Fuller.

Kent was known for her silk screens, and she often juxtaposed spiritual writing alongside symbols of consumerist culture. She was a well-known activist, fighting for civil rights, anti-war causes, and women’s rights.

The following film trailer is for a comedy / horror film called "Teeth" made in 2007. I know, I know, it plays into the whole "Vagina with Teeth" concept... but I think it is hysterical and if you haven't seen it you should.

The painting above, for which Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper never posed, was motivated by the political frustration of Kingston, Ontario artist Margaret Sutherland.

The painting depicts Canada’s prime minister reclining on a chaise lounge, in nothing more than his birthday suit.

Why?

Sutherland says she was motivated to make the painting because of her frustrations with the Canadians government and it is meant to show that people need to look at issues for themselves without always believing the party line. Or so she says.

Sometimes what the artist says and the actual effect/meaning of the painting is very different. In this case I would argue its actually a statement about the history of men in politics.

In Canada there has only ever been 1 female Prime Minister, Kim Campbell, was only in power for 4 months and 10 days. She wasn't elected either, she was appointed to the position by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney when he was on his way out in an effort to distance his unpopularity with the party in an effort to win the 1993 general election.

But that bid failed so badly that the Liberals were handed a landslide victory.

However Kim Campbell aside lets go back to the core concept. The Canadian leadership has been dominated by men, and in this case Stephen Harper is economically inept man who has followed a laissez-faire approach (do nothing and hope the problem goes away). He is a status quo prime minister who just wants to maintain the current standards, has no vision for the future, and kowtows to the Alberta oil industry.

Plus its basically a remake of Edouard Manet’s 1863 painting, Olympia, which depicted a prostitute in the pose of a Greek goddess. Manet's painting was a slap in the face of the art community of the time which was ultra conservative.

Conclusions? Making a remake of Olympia, itself a feminist piece, of Canada's inept prime minister draws attention to several factors:

#1. Stephen Harper thinks too highly of himself and this painting mocks his arrogance.

#2. Canada needs a more competent leader.

#3. Canada needs more women in politics (not necessarily the prime minister, but at least in parliament).

In 2002 it was estimated that there were 100,000 prostitutes working in Tehran, despite Iran’s international reputation as a moralistic country with especially high standards placed on women. Many of these women are driven to prostitution because of abusive domestic situations and the poverty incurred from the massive loss of men during the Iran-Iraq war; in response to Iran’s strict religious laws, some even consider the profession as an act of civil protest.

Fakhim’s sculptures play on the duplicitous perceptions of streetwalkers, highlighting the hypocrisy surrounding the sex industry. Made from found materials, her assemblages are grotesque configurations, exaggerating rough-trade stereotypes of wig-wearing, melon-chested slappers contortedly stuffed into ill-fitting lingerie (in reality Tehran vice-girls wear hijabs and are identifiable through more covert and subtle signals). Fakhim farcically combines westernized hooker fashion with the codes of Islamic demur, torsos and heads made from cooking implements, adorned with make-shift veils and chastity belts.

Using ordinary objects and items of clothing, Fakhim exaggerates the less than flattering associations of floozy hygiene, her ready made materials driving home the punch lines of rude jokes. Blond wigs shoved down pants make for Sasquatch bikini lines, wayward bits of rope reveal pre-op transsexuals, and a carefully placed abacus reads more like a send up than evidence of financial acumen. Fakhim ironically stages this menagerie as a source of ridicule, provocatively placing items such as alms baskets and air fresheners to illustrate public scorn and social stigma.

Fakhim’s ladies of the night approach the naked body as a source of taboo. The discomfort of looking at them is displaced through a purile, intolerant, and scapegoat humour, revealing more about public attitudes and ignorance than about prostitutes themselves. Issues such as female genital mutilation, transgender orientation, homosexuality and cross dressing are all awkwardly broached through her vulgar approximations of stitched up crotches and mis-matched private bits, confusing the brutal, illicit, forbidden and desirous.

Fakhim’s life sized sculptures, Tehran Prostitutes, are strangely totemic, connoting a certain black-market power and ritual in their reference to the early 20th century fashion of ‘primitivism’. With hour-glass figures formed from portable stoves and adorned with cheap market-stall wares, Fakhim’s assemblages point to a commodification of necessity, their make-shift charm belied by associations to poverty, domestic violence, economic migration and human trafficking.

Approaching sculpture as an intrinsically tactile activity, Fakhim chooses her materials with a playful sensitivity. Crafted from the female stuff of fabric, clothing, and kitchen apparatus, her sculptures temper benign domesticity with a bawdy coarseness, creating a vaudevillian humour from over-stretched stockings, sickly green terrine masks, and exaggeratedly padded brassieres. Hardy practical tools such as stoves and pots create a physical contrast to the fussy adornments of lace and garters, creating an image of sexual prowess that’s conspicuously ill-fitting, painful, and tragic.

In Ancient India, in times of oldIn the land of Aydohya, lived Rama the BoldRama was the perfect son, living by the rules of DharmaEver dutiful and responsible, he was blessed with good Karma

Prince Rama was the oldest, but his stepmother was a schemerShe sought for her son Bharata, wanting him to be the next leaderHaving saved the king from illness, she sought out the king for a favourAnything sayeth the king, not knowing the price of her desire

"I wish for you to banish Rama, make Bharata your heir."Nothing could have wounded the king more, for Rama was most fairBound by his word the King obeyed, disliking his wife's demandRama heard his father's edict, "I gladly obey father's command."

Rama was married to Sita, whose purity was like a lotus blossomSita begged to go with Rama, their two hearts beating like one drum"As shadow to substance, so is wife to husband.""Let me walk ahead of you, clear your passage through the land."

Rama agreed to his wife's request, taking her deep into the forestHis brother Lakshmana went too, making Rama's flight his questBharata sought to deny the throne, forsaking his mother's graceHe placed Rama's sandals on the seat, acting as regent in Rama's place

Deep in the forests lived monks, but they were plagued by Rakshasa monstersRama's arrows were true, his aim was unsurpassed amongst archersWherever Rama went the demons died in hordesHis bow string hummed like a sitar with its chords

To the south on the island of Lanka was the demon king RavanaAn incredible wise man Ravana's ten heads was a match for RamaHe spied Sita and seized her while Rama was chasing a deerTaking her back to Lanka Ravana had no worries or fear

Across the sea Ravana fled, Sita over his shoulderSita wept for Rama but was wiser than her kidnapperFrom her arms and neck she dropped her bracelets and jewelrySayeth Sita: "Take me back to Rama, stop this foolery!"

Sayeth Ravana: "Sita, I will make you my wife.""You will come to me willingly and I shall spare your life."Sayeth Sita: "I love only Rama. I cannot love another.""I belong to Rama like the ground belongs to the earth mother."

Sayeth Ravana: "Nonsense, what does Rama have that I do not?""I will have you for my wife Sita as surely as the sun is hot!"Sayeth Sita: "Rama is powerful, you would be foolish not to run!""I belong to Rama like the rays belongs to the sun!"

In the forest Rama met the monkey king HanumanTogether they searched for Sita and came up with a planHanuman found Sita's jewelry on the shores of the seaAcross the water lay the island of Lanka and he knew where Sita must be

Hanuman went to Lanka and saw Sita in the gardenShe had gracefully refused to enter Ravana's home or denRavana did not force her, he left her alone to her prayersHanuman went to her and tried to soothe her tears

Sayeth Hanuman: "Never fear dear Sita, Hanuman is here.""Come with me back to Rama and we shall disappear!"Sayeth Sita: "Ravana's demons are many, even now they come.""You must run Hanuman, don't you hear their drum?!"

The Rakshasa demons seized Hanuman and set fire to his tailBut Hanuman leapt away, jumping on the palace wall and leaving a fiery trailThe Rakshasa demons chased him but Hanuman left only ruins in his wakeRavana's palace was burned down and he swore at his demons for their mistake

Hanuman returned to Rama and told him where Sita was heldHe told Rama everything he saw, touched and smelledRama called upon Hanuman to raise the monkey warriorsHanuman did as he was bid, by the tens of scores

Rama and his monkey army built a causeway to LankaThey toiled day and night to reach the island and SitaWhen they arrived the monkeys slew all the Rakshasa demonsRama himself slew Ravana and all of his sons

Sita wept with love, proud that her husband was so boldBut when he came near her he began acting coldSita professed her love and thanking him for his actionsShe knew in her heart she would bear Rama's sons

Sayeth Rama: "You have stayed in another man's house.""I have done my duty to rescue you but I cannot be your spouse."Sayeth Sita: "If I had known this would happen I would have killed myself.""Build me a funeral pyre so you may see my purity yourself."

Rama and Hanuman built a funeral pyre as they were commandedSita walked amongst the flames untouched, true to her marriage bedRama forgave her, his love and loyalty for her renewedThey flew back to Ayodhya in a Pushpaka with the end of their feud

Rama was crowned king, the happy couple began their reignEverything was joyous again but Rama overheard one man complainSayeth the man to his wife: "Do you think I am like Rama?""You have slept with another man, I don't need your lies or drama."

Sayeth Sita: "Husband I have really great news.""Our bed has been fruitful, someday your sons will fill your shoes."Sayeth Rama: "I cannot keep you my dearest.""My people don't respect me even though you passed the test."

Rama sent Sita away, craving the respect of his peopleSita went obediently, residing instead in a templeShe met there the poet Valmiki and told him her storyHer tale told of Rama in all his greatness and glory

Sita gave birth to two sons with eyes like Rama'sBut Sita was still sad, remembering everything that once wasValmiki helped to raise the two boys, teaching them songs of trust"Rama is great, Rama is just, Rama does what Rama must."

One day Rama went for a stroll and heard the two boys singing"My sons!" sayeth Rama. "You must come live in Ayodhya with your king."But then Rama noticed Sita and realized she must come too"Perhaps a trial by water, such a trick should not be too difficult for you."

Sayeth Sita: "I will prove my love to you dearest Rama.""If I have always been true to you, from Lanka to Ayodhya.""If I have always been the perfect bride to the perfect groom.""Then may mother earth please take me back into her womb."

Fini.

Ahem...

The poem itself was written by Toronto poet Charles Moffat, but I think the story gives a very strong feminist message. Sita gets sucked back into Mother Earth and Rama loses his perfect bride whom had been loyal to him all this time.

Just desserts in my opinion. He didn't deserve her. Rama was a jerk and only cared about his dharma (duty / honour).

The original story, the Ramayana, is a 26,000 couplet poem by the poet Valmiki. This version is much shorter and gives Sita more attention.

Cartography isn't a normal medium for feminist art, but when it comes to mapping rape reports it does.

In 1977, Los Angeles was called the USA rape capital. Nearly 2,400 rapes were reported to police that year alone. Less than 10% of the rapes were reported to police. In 2011 LA’s reported rape count stands at 683.

Suzanne Lacy's "Three Weeks in May" from May 1977 mapped rape reports in L.A. county. It was one of the most important examples of feminist art from California during the 1970s.

Below: In 2012 Suzanne Lacy created "Three Weeks in January", a redux of her original show from 1977. The map is on display outside of LAPD Headquarters in downtown LA until February 1st 2012.

Body Gesture: A Group Exhibition of Feminist Art is at Elizabeth Leach Gallery. 10:30 am-5:30 pm Tuesday-Saturday. Closes January 28th 2012 (today, sorry for the late post).

The feminist art show features thoughtful and provocative artwork as it explores feminist themes such as body image, gender polarization and a woman’s right to choose. The artwork is by 17 artists who hail from the feminist art movement’s heyday in the 1960s and ’70s, but several younger artists rode in on feminism’s second and third waves.

Rachel Kneebone's sculptural women are perched on pedestals, their torsos deformed and twisted, their arms intertwined with flowers and plants creating abstract shapes in a hellscape.

Kneebone's most ambitious work includes "The Descent," from 2008.

"The Descent" is a 11½-by-5-foot porcelain caldron filled with hundreds of tiny human forms being pulled into a hellish pit. Kneebone's figures become more abstract the deeper they fall into hell. She notes, to "the loss of the individual, of self" amid chaos.

Catherine Morris, the curator of the Brooklyn Museum's Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, says there is a striking resemblance between the feminist art of Rachel Kneebone and Auguste Rodin.

Rodin was famous for affairs with his models, but instead it was often "personal, sensual, physical," she says. "Rachel takes that same notion and feminizes it."

Rachel Kneebone, 38, studied at the Royal College of Art in London where porcelain caught her interest early on. "Porcelain is a very definite material," she says. "It has boundaries within its possibilities and I work with or against them, depending on what I am asking in the work."

Today we're going to talk about Canadian abstract artist Laura Warburton... if you Google her name you will find she is one of the top 5 abstract artists currently living in Canada.

But what is more her work deals with a variety of topics, including female sexuality and how we're treated by men. In particular I want to speak about her 'Yellow, Red and Blue' (untitled) paintings which use newspaper clippings of ads for sex workers as the 'skin' of the female figures.

Thought provoking? I think so. Its really about the sexualization and commodification of the female body.

But more so it proves that abstract art can also be feminist art. Way to go Laura Warburton!

Below is the animated film "Sita Sings the Blues" which tells the Indian tale of the goddess Sita (the wife of Rama)... [Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Hare Rama Hare Rama... you know it!]... and splices it together with a modern story about marriage disharmony.

And better yet its free and you will see by the ending it has a strong feminist message about independence.

SPOILER ALERT!

The film was created by Nina Paley, an anti-copyright activist and feminist. Her film has sparked protests amongst some Hindus because Rama ends up ditching a pregnant Sita and treating her like dirt, but she outsmarts him in the end. (Which is completely accurate to the story, so why the heck are they protesting part of their own culture?! Silliness.)

Miranda July, Yoko Ono and the Guerilla Girls are just a few of the artists featured in "!Women Art Revolution". The new documentary, playing this weekend at the Detroit Film Theatre, is a collection of interviews with female artists done over 40 years by filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson.

Leeson, a multimedia artist, began interviewing artist friends in her Berkeley, Calif., living room around 1966. The women weigh in on everything from gender politics to the finer points of their works in very different genres.

Above: "The Creation" painting by Judy Chicago, 1985. One of the works on display at Subliminal Projects through August 20 2011.

The new exhibition showcases the legacy of feminist art with works by Judy Chicago, Mary Beth Edelson and more.

Katherine B. Cone, director of Subliminal Projects Gallery, has put together its newest exhibition, "Eve." From July 23 through Aug. 20, the gallery, created by renowned street artist Shepard Fairey in 1995, will show a diverse collection of works by nine revolutionary female artists, including pioneers of the feminist art movement such as Chicago and Mary Beth Edelson, and others expanding the legacy today, such as Alex Prager and Swoon.

"My responsibility as an artist is to work, to sing for my supper, to make art, beautiful and powerful, that adds and reveals; to beautify the mess of a messy world, to heal the sick and feed the helpless; to shout bravely from the rooftops and storm barricaded doors and voice the specificity of our historical moment." --Carrie Mae Weems

In 1981 Weems was graduating from California Institute of the Arts and moving on to an MFA from the University of California-San Diego.

She was part of a political artist group that was pairing text with photographs. The above piece is a great example of that form.

Below is a sample from The Kitchen Table Series (1990):

When you look at these photos you might be reminded of the complex relationships among women; the different roles we play-mother, daughter, sister, friend. The emotions we inflict on our loved ones and even when we try to love sometimes it comes across as shame. We think about the desire to please those we care about. The bonds that don't break dispite immense tension.

She is probably most known for her performance art piece entitled Interior Scroll (1975). From the accounts others have written it seems she would peel off her clothing, cover herself in mud (or paint?), and then extract a scroll from her vagina and read it. The image I have posted to the right is from the Tate website and apparently the writing on the side is from the vaginal scroll. How daring is that?! Love it or hate it.

She says of this piece: "I thought of the vagina in many ways-- physically, conceptually: as a sculptural form, an architectural referent, the sources of sacred knowledge, ecstasy, birth passage, transformation. I saw the vagina as a translucent chamber of which the serpent was an outward model: enlivened by it's passage from the visible to the invisible, a spiraled coil ringed with the shape of desire and generative mysteries, attributes of both female and male sexual power. This source of interior knowledge would be symbolized as the primary index unifying spirit and flesh in Goddess worship."

Among many in your face installations/performances/films (she was also a painter among other things) another one of note is Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions (1963). Here Schneemann covers herself in her environment while Icelandic artist Erró photographs. She says:

"I wanted my actual body to be combined with the work as an integral material-- a further dimension of the construction... I am both image-maker and image. The body may remain erotic, sexual, desired, desiring, but it is as well votive: marked, written over in a text of stroke and gesture discovered by my creative female will."

Unfortunately she was "pigeon holed" and typecasted as an "erotic artist". She was unhappy with this because she wanted not to be this delicate female erotic image but hardcore, ugly, in your face, I don't fuck around sexuality: a quality that more die hard feminists appreciate

Between the dates of January 3oth and February 28th an amazing installation was created by a group of women at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in the Feminist Art Program. Judy Chicago & Miriam Schapiro both co-founders of the program worked with their students and the community to create the unflinching and under appriatiated art experience called WOMANHOUSE.

Together they took over a building and each artist constructed a room that showed without apology there interpretation of the (middle class white) female experience. The bathroom was done by Judy Chicago and titled Menstruation Bathroom. A waste basket overflows with dirty bloody pads and feminine hygiene products scattered about.

Sandra Orgel created Linen Closet which shows a women trapped inside a linen closet with neatly folded towels and her head in what appears almost like a guillotine. One leg is outside as if she is free but not free from the female experience we are taught to embrace and feel stuck inside.

Sadly it is hard to come by images of all the rooms in the house. According to Wikipidia these were the rooms:

It is amazing that a group of women came together and formed a community and through art shared their female experience. It is visceral and yet sad. There was a film made about this installation that can be purchased for an expensive price ($250 for a DVD).

Info from the Women Make Movies site:
A film by Johanna Demetrakas
1974, 47 minutes, Color, VHS/DVD
http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c324.shtml

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